05/02/2020 62016CJ0498  (c) in a non-member State, if the claims assigned to him arise from consumer supplies involving the same defendant in the same legal context and if the assignment is not part of a professional or trade activity of the applicant, but rather serves to ensure the joint enforcement of claims?’ Consideration of the questions referred The first question 25 By its first question, the referring court asks, in essence, whether Article 15 of Regulation No 44/2001 must be interpreted as meaning that the activities of publishing books, lecturing, operating websites, fundraising and being assigned the claims of numerous consumers for the purpose of their enforcement do not entail the loss of a private Facebook account user’s status as a ‘consumer’ within the meaning of that article. 26 At the outset, it should be recalled that, in so far as Regulation No 44/2001 replaces the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (OJ 1978 L 304, p. 36), as amended by the successive conventions relating to the accession of new Member States to that convention, the interpretation provided by the Court in respect of the provisions of that convention is valid also for those of the regulation whenever the provisions of those instruments may be regarded as ‘equivalent’ (judgment of 28 January 2015, Kolassa, C-375/13, EU:C:2015:37, paragraph 21 and the case-law cited), which is the case here. 27 Within the scheme of Regulation No 44/2001, the jurisdiction of the courts of the Member State in which the defendant is domiciled constitutes the general principle enshrined in Article 2(1) of that regulation. It is only by way of derogation from that principle that that provision provides for an exhaustive list of cases in which the defendant may or must be sued before the courts of another Member State. As a consequence, the rules of jurisdiction which derogate from that general principle are to be strictly interpreted, in the sense that they cannot give rise to an interpretation going beyond the cases expressly envisaged by that regulation (see, to that effect, judgment of 20 January 2005, Gruber, C-464/01, EU:C:2005:32, paragraph 32). 28 Although the concepts used by Regulation No 44/2001, in particular those which appear in Article 15(1) of that regulation, must be interpreted independently, by reference principally to the general scheme and objectives of that regulation, in order to ensure that it is applied uniformly in all Member States (judgment of 28 January 2015, Kolassa, C-375/13, EU:C:2015:37, paragraph 22 and the case-law cited), account must, in order to ensure compliance with the objectives pursued by the legislature of the European Union in the sphere of consumer contracts, and the consistency of EU law, also be taken of the definition of ‘consumer’ in other rules of EU law (judgment of 5 December 2013, Vapenik, C-508/12, EU:C:2013:790, paragraph 25). 29 In that respect, the Court has stated that the notion of a ‘consumer’ for the purposes of Articles 15 and 16 of Regulation No 44/2001 must be strictly construed, reference being made to the position of the person concerned in a particular contract, having regard to the nature and objective of that contract and not to the subjective situation of the person concerned, since the same person may be regarded as a consumer in relation to certain transactions and as an economic operator in relation to others (see, to that effect, judgments of 3 July 1997, Benincasa, C-269/95, EU:C:1997:337, paragraph 16, and of 20 January 2005, Gruber, C-464/01, EU:C:2005:32, paragraph 36). 30 From this the Court has inferred that only contracts concluded outside and independently of any trade or professional activity or purpose, solely for the purpose of satisfying an individual’s own needs in terms of private consumption, are covered by the special rules laid down by the regulation to protect the consumer as the party deemed to be the weaker party. Such protection is, however, unwarranted in the case of contracts for the purpose of a trade or professional activity (see, to that effect, judgment of 20 January 2005, Gruber, C-464/01, EU:C:2005:32, paragraph 36). 31 It follows that the special rules of jurisdiction in Articles 15 to 17 of Regulation No 44/2001 apply, in principle, only where the contract has been concluded between the parties for the purpose of a file:///Users/nerissa/Downloads/Columbia CSV/Schrems v Facebook Ireland.htm 5/8